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Vår 2024

BIO-8025 DNA Metabarcoding: Data processing and interpretation - 5 stp


The course is administrated by

Institutt for arktisk og marin biologi

Type of course

Theoretical and practical

Course overlap

BIO-3025 DNA Metabarcoding: Data processing and interpretation 5 ects

Course contents

Biodiversity loss, often referred to as biodiversity crisis, is a global environmental problem causing international concern and demanding urgent counteracting measures. Biodiversity is commonly defined in terms of a number of species present in a particular environment, or in total in the world. This makes species not only one of the fundamental biological concepts but also a focus of global conservation efforts. Currently morphology-based species delimitation provides the baseline for conservation of most plant and animal groups. Development of molecular systematics and computational algorithms has been gradually bringing more and more genetic based approaches to characterizing species as evolutionary units, as compared to morphology based taxonomical units. The course focuses on high-throughput screening approach of DNA sequence variation (DNA Metabarcoding) for species identification and discovery that provides rapid assessments of biodiversity, animal diet assessment, reconstruction of paleo communities, among others. The course will consist of a series of lectures and bioinformatics practicals introducing different aspects of DNA metabarcoding. Bioinformatics practicals will introduce data analysis from raw sequences to taxonomic group assignment to enable basic ecological conclusion.

Admission requirements

Who can apply as a singular course student:

Maximum 15 participants.

If more than 15 applicants, priority will be given as follows:

1. Participants admitted to the PhD programme at UiT 2. Participants in the Associate Professor programme (Førstelektorprogrammet) 3. PhD candidates from other universities 4. People with a minimum of a Masters degree (or equivalent), who have not been admitted to a PhD programme


Objective of the course

After the course the students should have

Knowledge:

Skills:

General competence:


Language of instruction

English

Teaching methods

Intensive course on DNA Metabarcoding data analyses (1 week) which will include lectures and data analyses practicals. Followed by 5 weeks of molecular laboratory training with lectures and data analyses practicals.